My guild alliance is going through some hoo-hah about re-evaluating the council we elected. I'm the main raid leader in the alliance and said up front when I was asked that I wanted no part of gaming politics. They respected that and left me alone to run raids, and I left them alone to do recruitment and whatever else. Then, people started to bitch that we had closed recruitment and that raids were suffering and yadda yadda.
The "Update the Council" thread was getting entirely too serious, and it was frankly ticking me off that we actually had a council at all in a loose raiding alliance. This post was actually posted as a suggestion:
How about we reorganize things into "Governing Council" "Discipline Council" and "Cabinet"?
The Governing Council will consist of a small number of highly motivated and highly interested people who will decide policy and keep things running smoothly. Back in the Day we had a group of three who kept things running, and for the most part the three of us kept each other in check. Since the circumstances which allowed Cogline, Arlanthe and I to succeed as well as we did in that position aren't likely to be repeated, I suggest a Governing Council of five or seven. This is a small enough number that each member will still be keenly motivated to hold that spot, but not so small that one or two people being AFK for a few days or a week will cause the whole thing to crumble. It should also be an odd number, so that there will never be a deadlocked tie.
Day to day minutiae will be handled by the Governing Council autonomously. If something large comes up, the Governing Council will discuss amongst themselves and hammer out a resolution which will be suitable for either "Up or Down" or "Does the PMA like A, B or C better"? type votes. The entire PMA will be polled with these resolutions, with the poll lasting a reasonable period of time. This will allow a check and balance, because the Governing Council will be empowered to do minor things like cleaning up policy papertrails on its own, but will need the blessing of the PMA at large for major decisions such as opening or closing recruitment, or Some Other Stuff I Haven't Thought Of Yet.
The Governing Council will be composed purely of volunteers. Since the Council is answerable to the entire PMA, it will be guild agnostic.
The Cabinet will consist of other people who are interested in PMA Government. Cabinet members will take the place of the current "Officer" rank and permissions status. Cabinet members will be free to speak in the Governing Council, but will be considered advisors only.
The Governing Council and the Cabinet will have full "Read" access to the Council Chamber, however the Cabinet will only have "Write" privileges to the Council Floor. Governing Council will have moderation privileges currently accorded to the "Council" permissions group, and Cabinet will have the privileges currently held by the "Officer" permission group.
At this point, I realized that people in gaming worlds are completely insane. This much beauracracy isn't required to run a city, let alone a guild. So, I just said they can have fun playing student government, but I officially stopped paying attention to it anymore.
Hey, looks like I was right when I saw the title of that thread and decided I didn't want to click it!
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